deepprobe not working for extracted cellview in ADE-XL run.

Unfortunately I think this is something that needs fixing in Spectre. You need to add the backslash before the <,>,/ and : characters because they're not legal in spectre, but unfortunately it's retaining the \ before the colon and this is what leads to the problem (I think). To get this fixed you should contact customer support with a test case illustrating the problem (I hacked one together, but don't have the bandwidth to file this with R&D, and it would better to provide a real-life example whereas mine was completely artificial).

I don't think there's a workaround for now other than modifying the DSPF file to alter the colon to be some other character. 

Regards,

Andrew.

Dear Andrew,

I replaced all Xbuf<0>/MMNINP:G to Xbuf<0>/MMNINP.G iin the netlist.spf file.

I used the probe name in deepprobe as:- clkdiv.Xbuf\<0\>\/MMNINP.G.

But it is still shwoing the following:-

WARNING (SFE-411): "input.scs" 393: Hierarchical node `clkdiv.Xbuf<0>/MMNINP.G' does not exist in design. It will be treated as a regular (non-hierarchical) node.

Using dot is a particularly bad idea, because that’s spectre’s hierarchy separator. You might be able to escape it but why not just keep life simple and use underscore instead. There aren’t any prizes for making like hard for yourself!

Colon is also probably a challenge because of its use as the terminal delimiter in spectre. However, I think if escaped it ought in principle to work. 

Regards,

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

I replaced all Xbuf<0>/MMNINP:G to Xbuf<0>/MMNINP_G in the netlist.spf file.

I used the probe name in deepprobe as:- clkdiv.Xbuf\<0\>\/MMNINP\_G.

But still it is showing :- 

WARNING (SFE-411): "input.scs" 393: Hierarchical node `clkdiv.Xbuf<0>/MMNINP_G' does not exist in design. It will be treated as a regular (non-hierarchical) node.

In my netlist file, the include line is as follow for the extracted cell view is VCO_clkdiv :-

dspf_include "/../VCO_clkdiv/spf_max_rcc_125/netlist.spf".

I think the netlist.spf file is a binary file. Though I am opening this file in Library Manager through nedit and replacing the above pattern, it is actually not gettting reflected during spectre's netlist generation process.

Is there a better way find and replace the dspf file so that it will be the final one that spectre would take ?

Kind Regards,

First of all, you don't need a backslash before the underscore in the deepprobe because underscore is a legal character in a net name, so doesn't need escaping. However, for me, it works with or without the backslash (using SPECTRE 18.1).

The DSPF file itself isn't binary - it's an ASCII file. How are you referencing the file? If it's via Setup->Simulation Files, then it's just an ASCII file and all should be OK - you should be able to edit it. The only thing to consider is whether spectre really re-starts, which would definitely happen if you editing the deep probe on the schematic and re-did netlist and run. Otherwise you might have to hit the stop button (if using ADE L).

If you're using a DSPF view (which I don't think you are because I would expect the file to end with design.dspf if you were), then it should also work.

So I'm intrigued as to how you're editing this from the library manager. Which tool was used to do the extraction?

The only case with a binary file is if you've extracted with Quantus QRC and are using a "Smart View" (the new extracted view format) in IC618/ICADVM181. That is then a binary file which netlists to DSPF, and so editing the DSPF file wouldn't help you...

Regards,

Andrew.

Dear Andrew,

May I know how you are opening the dspf file (.spf) which is in ASCII format in a terminal and edit/save it.

I am using Calibre-StarRC for extraction.

I used vi (might have been gvim, but essentially the same).

Andrew.